Do Content Marketing or Die on the Internet featuring Andrew and Pete

JSB Talks Digital Podcast #76

JSB Talks Digital is a weekly digital marketing and social media podcast hosted by author, strategist, consultant, speaker and trainer Joanne Sweeney-Burke. Each Friday Joanne shares her digital marketing and social media insights from her work as CEO of Digital Training Institute.

Social Media News

Facebook launches Creator App

Facebook has launched a Creator App to help influencers build video communities. We all know the importance of video in terms of engagement, especially on Facebook as the social network continues to add new video marketing features.

Facebook describes Creator App as:

“A one stop shop for creators of all kinds, to help take their passions to the next level. With the app, creators can easily create original video, go live with exclusive features, and connect with their community on Facebook — all from their pocket.”

Live Creative Kit: Access exclusive tools that make it easy to create live broadcasts with a personalized and fun feel. Creators can add intros as openers to their live broadcasts, outros that conclude them, custom live stickers that viewers can use to interact, and graphic frames to create a consistent brand.

Community Tab: Connect with fans and collaborators with a unified inbox, which centralizes comments from Facebook and Instagram, and messages from Messenger.

Camera & Stories: Use fun camera effects and frames and easily cross-post content to other platforms. Creators can also access Facebook Stories to engage with their fans.

LinkedIn offering to tell bosses what employees are sharing

LinkedIn is a professional networking site growing in appeal amongst professionals and not just job-seekers. But what do you think about their new offering to company bosses?

LinkedIn is analysing users’ sharing habits and offering to send its findings to their employers. This includes the amount of content people are posting, and the impact these updates are having on “content engagement”.

The message has the subject line: “Get data on your employees’ sharing behaviour.” We know from our research that companies whose employees regularly share content are able to better market their products and services. We’d like to offer you the chance to see unique data about the sharing activity of your own employees, something we’re only doing for a select set of companies.”

My own opinion is that far from spying on who you are connected with, this feature promotes proficient use of LinkedIn by employees to build both their own professional but also the companies’ reputation. So, if you want a promotion, you might just look to LinkedIn as one of your tactics!

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For the fifth year in a row, #love is the top Instagram hashtag

The Beatles famously sang it, and not it seems it’s official on Instagram! ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!

For the fifth year in a row, #love is the top Instagram on the social network.

In celebration of their global community of 800 million people, Instagram is sharing the following Year in Review data:

2017’s top Instagram hashtags

2017’s most-liked posts and videos

2017’s most-Instagrammed cities and locations (based on geotags)

The most-followed celebrities

Celebrities who gained the most followers on Instagram in 2017

Hashtags that increased most in popularity throughout 2017

Accounts with the Most-viewed Instagram Stories of 2017

The most-used Instagram Filters in feed and Instagram Stories

The most-followed pets on Instagram

Follow along on #IGYearInReview as the social network reflects on the most memorable Instagram trends of 2017 or read more on their blog.

Interview | Andrew and Pete

In today’s show I interview two content marketing geniuses who are crazy about fun but practical marketing.

Andrew and Pete help solopreneurs and small businesses to create insanely shareable content that builds brands people love, through their membership community – ATOMIC.

They won the ‘Digital and Social Media Company of the Year Award’, and also ‘Business Personality of the Year Award’.

They are the are authors of ‘The Hippo Campus’ and ‘Content Mavericks’.

I’ve been following Andrew and Pete for about a year now, and recently got to meet them at the Youpreneur Summit in London. Of course they immediately fell in love with JSB, and that had absolutely nothing to do with me giving them my drink tokens. 🙂

In this interview we discuss the power of content marketing and their approach to it. We also have a lot of fun!

1. Frontline Education

Its marketing department was tasked with generating one-third of the company’s sales pipeline. The team tackled this goal by building and documenting a content marketing strategy – including a mission statement, persona profiles, a topic repository, and an editorial calendar – around informing, educating, and inspiring education leaders.

To drive relevant topics for the market, the team leveraged customer interviews, internal subject matter experts, and original industry data from a separate content marketing initiative – the Frontline Research & Learning Institute.

The content strategy delivered:

Marketing exceeded its goals and generated 32% of the company’s new business.

Content saw steady engagement, and increased engagement in new market areas. In one area (professional growth) Frontline saw a 195% increase in click-to-open rates.

Despite a high volume of marketing emails, the value of the content led to very low (<0.7%) opt-out rates, speaking to the value of the content.

Not only does their content receive frequent accolades from company leadership, but prospective clients have emailed to thank Frontline for its content.

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2. Direct Advice 4 Dads

HBF, Western Australia’s oldest and largest private health insurer. Last year, it developed its first content brand, Direct Advice 4 Dads (DAD). Taking a page out of the Content Inc. playbook, the company steered clear of the crowded maternity market, and identified a gap in pregnancy and parenting content targeted to new and expecting dads (who, by the way, are just as involved as moms in making decisions about their family’s health insurance needs). HBF’s decision to tilt its content focus to serve this untapped audience turned out to be a key factor in DAD’s success – and a source of inspiration in the lives of the dads who now engage with it regularly.

Using a blogging and social media strategy, the brand generated 171,000 unique visitors and 21,000 followers on Facebook in its first five months and continues to grow, gain media attention, and bring new dads into the conversation. Not surprisingly, the DAD platform is becoming a powerful referral path for HBF.

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3. CDW Tech Magazine

Tech solutions provider CDW recognized the power in using thought leadership content to build the trusting relationships that are critical to driving its business.

But while the goals for its successful Tech magazine program have remained largely the same since its inception in 2002, the company has shown little interest in resting on its laurels. Instead, it has committed to evolving the ways it uses content to strengthen its position as a trustworthy and technically astute partner in the tech decision-making process.

CDW shifted its brand newsroom processes so it could publish new content daily for each of the websites in its portfolio, while also posting print magazine-assigned content as soon as it became available (rather than waiting for its quarterly print issues to mail).

These efforts to provide more immediacy resulted in more consistent traffic across each site rather than spikes around print mail dates. Then, to achieve greater editorial efficiency and streamline distribution, the company replaced its practice of assigning e-newsletter – exclusive content for a daily web feed to using a compilation of “best of the web” content for inclusion in a bimonthly newsletter.

JSB’s Column: Win the mid funnel audience with content marketing

In today’s column, I want to tell you about the mid funnel opportunity that is largely ignored by brands and organisations when trying to attract and convert their ideal customer. The marketing tactic to win this valuable traffic is…you guessed it…content marketing.

So, what is a Funnel I hear you ask? Well in the very astute words of Kissmetrics, a funnel is:

“The set of steps a visitor needs to go through before they can reach the conversion stage of a buying process.”

The middle of the funnel is where you start making a case for what your organisation offers, and where you can start identifying your product or service as a solution to your audience’s problems.

This podcast for example, is a mid-funnel piece of content. I’m sharing my knowledge, hacks and expertise which gives you trust in me. For many of you, you are probably thinking about how we could work together?

Some people think mid-funnel is the hardest part of the funnel to master, but that’s because they are impatient and want to just get people to buy, book or sign up.

Making people aware of something is one thing, and so is convincing a potential client to invest in you, but guiding your audience from awareness to the cusp of conversion is a different deal entirely.

This stage is also the part of the process where content marketing can add the most value. For a lot of businesses, the nuts and bolts of conversion is still done face-to-face, while the top of the funnel can be improved simply by investing in paid ads.

Why does content marketing work so well in the middle of the funnel?

The answer is simple. Content marketing talks directly to those who are already aware of your organisation. It convinces them that you know what you’re talking about, and that your services would be a valuable investment – all without getting too ‘salesy’ and turning people off.

Joanne is a digital marketing and social media consultant, trainer and international speaker. She is currently working on her second social media book and holds 11 professional and academic qualifications, including a Masters Degree in Journalism and a Masters Degree in Digital Marketing. Joanne loves to empower her clients with knowledge and skills to equip them in the digital age. Be sure to follow her tweets @tweetsbyJSB.